Something Other Than Clothes

We are planning a comforter-tying party at church to make comforters to donate to Mennonite Central Committee. Elaine talked to Pat, who said she would make the tops if I had more 5" charm squares. Pat did that a couple of years ago and used about two-thirds of my bin of squares making half a dozen tops, so yesterday morning, I got out my Studio cutter and the 5" die and attacked the stack of leftovers. I can cut 80 squares in one pass. The bin is much fuller now and I told Pat I would bring it to church on Sunday.

I ran into town to mail some packages and drop my class samples off at the store. I also picked up a new concrete saw blade for the husband. He and the guys have been working here all week while they wait for excavation for the next foundation job to be completed. They are doing maintenance and repair on the concrete forms and equipment.

When I got back, I took out my bin of food-themed fabrics and made some quilt sandwiches. I’m feeling the need to play around on the Q20, but I want to work on some small projects before I tackle another quilt top. A lot of my foodie fabrics are remnants, so I find pieces of quilt batting and backing and Insul-Bright to pair with them. I quilt the sandwiches, then cut them into potholders:

I’ll churn these out and stack them up, and some day when I have nothing else to do, I’ll have a marathon machine-binding session. These will go into next year’s co-op sale. Potholders always sell well there.

Quilting loops and meanders is very relaxing. I forgot how relaxing it was until I did a couple of these quilt sandwiches yesterday afternoon. I do have an entire bolt of Insul-Bright, bought on a Joann Fabrics 50% off sale, so I’ll keep making potholders until I can’t stand it anymore.

It feels good to be using up supplies I’ve accumulated. That’s what they are there for. My friend, Deana, who lives in Tennessee, just got a serger. She has a nice side hustle making and selling items at craft fairs and farmer’s markets, so I am going to pack up a box of my knit fabric leftovers to send to her for making headbands and socks and other items to sell.

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I am over Christmas and it isn’t even here yet. For some reason, this year seems to have amplified everyone’s underlying issues and hauled them to center stage. I suppose that happens every year; perhaps I am just noticing it more this year. The past couple of weeks have been filled with clashing expectations of what people think Christmas should be, with the result that it becomes nothing resembling what it is.

I don’t know. The husband says that cracks are starting to appear. I think the cracks have been there for a while and are getting bigger. I think that people know that something is very wrong with the current state of affairs but it’s too painful to admit or acknowledge. And humans are not known for being rational creatures. I would much rather walk into a lousy situation with my eyes wide open—and so would the husband—but I suspect we are in a definite minority. We’re in the same minority that would rather work hard and make our own choices than be taken care of by a nanny state. It’s far easier for people to put their fingers in their ears and sing La-la-la-la.

My uncle recently had a miserable encounter with the health care system at a large institution that used to have an excellent reputation, now foolishly squandered. I may relate parts of that story in a future blog post just to illustrate how far we’ve sunk. What happened to him was appalling even to me, who has had my own ridiculous run-ins with the medical system in this country. Let’s just say that if a doctor ever says to me that a Google search is no substitute for a medical degree, that doctor is going to get an earful about how useless an institution full of medical degrees actually turned out to be.

At this point, the husband would ask me if it’s time for puppies and kittens. This is supposed to be a season of light and I am supposed to be reflecting that light, but I think it’s also important not to sweep things under the rug and ignore them.

A Blaudruck Apron

This is the apron my neighbor, Theresa, brought me from Germany. Isn’t it beautiful?

The fabric and the apron were made in Hungary, in a town south of Budapest called Tolna. (Szabo is a Hungarian surname, so this is doubly special.) Theresa brought back a brochure with the apron which had a website link to the producers of this particular apron—Blaudruckerei Fam. Horvath—but unfortunately, that website was a bit lacking in history. I did find a link to the web page of an embroidery artist named Kati who owns Kate and Rose Patterns. Kati grew up in Hungary and has an entire page about the history of blue-dye fabric. It includes lots of photos and information. She writes:

We always had tablecloths, aprons, dresses, skirts made of this fabric when I was little. My mother would find these fabrics at markets, but there were a lot more of the old workshops still manufacturing because in the 1970s this was still a popular fabric in villages. Now there are only six blue-dye manufacturers - with 4 active workshops - remaining in Hungary, and only about 20 in all of Europe. It's a labor-intensive technique, to be sure, but the results are truly lovely. Blue-dying was so important in Hungary that the old textile industry traces its roots to it - even the once-famous former Goldberger textile factory (now museum) in Budapest began as a blue-dye cloth manufacturing workshop. A truly tragic part here: Leo Goldberger, who led the way in modernizing Hungarian textile manufacturing, did not survive the Holocaust. Blue-dye cloth has been created in Hungary for hundreds of years, not long after the dye derived from the indigo plant arrived in Europe by way of French, Dutch, and Turkish traders in the 16th century. The first blue-dye manufacturers in Hungary appeared in the 17th century.

The designs on the fabric are unique and are created using dies dipped in beeswax and stamped onto the fabric. The beeswax keeps the indigo dye out of the fabric. Here is a closeup of that detailed border print:

This apron is a treasure, to be sure, and I love it. Thank you, Theresa!

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After running around all weekend, I wanted nothing more than to stay home yesterday. I spent the day making class samples. This is another Harper Cardigan:

I am teaching this class again here in February and I thought I would mix it up a bit with a different display cardigan for the store. This one has contrast bands. The main fabric is a sweater knit from Walmart. The bands are a bushed sweater knit, also from Walmart. I don’t wear brown, so this will be a good store sample.

I am having great fun with these sweater knits. I love the instant gratification of making a sweater in a couple of hours.

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I think I’ve finally corralled and organized all the social media stuff for the podcast. (Let’s hope.) I updated the running list of topics and added a few more names for interviews. If anyone has suggestions, leave me a note.

I’ve come across an interesting Substack account called The Sewing Machine Newsletter. The account offers a free-to-subscribe option, but if you want to read entire articles or access the archives, you have to pay a monthly or annual fee. The writing is excellent and well worth the subscription fee if you have any interest in sewing.

Nicole Sauce did her Word of the Year livestream yesterday. She talks about the reason for having a WOTY and the process of choosing one for 2024. Her WOTY for 2024 is HONE. She wants to “do more of less,” and that involves honing in on specific areas and sharpening them as you would hone a knife. I think that was a great choice.

Mine is going to be CULTIVATE. I had to jettison some of my activities—using the word NO in 2023—so I could have time to nourish the activities I love.

Finished Before the End of 2023

The apron post is coming, I promise. I had a meeting yesterday morning, after which I went into town to get chicken feed, then came home and baked cookies. I told the husband to write down the date because I don’t like to cook and I like baking even less than I like cooking. He requested a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies. I also made oatmeal scotchies and chocolate ones with peanut butter chips. I’ve got molasses cookie dough in the fridge.

I finished binding the cream-and-white quilt Friday night. I put it on our bed to take a picture. We have a queen-sized bed and it’s a king-sized quilt, because I like my quilts to hang down on the sides.

It looks very nice—and would look even better with some pretty pillow shams—but I hesitate to keep it on the bed. White anything in Montana is a bad idea. White is for people who live in homes where there is no dirt or wildfire ash or husbands who pour concrete. (Just for the record, I would rather have the husband than a sterile, clean house.) I will put it away until next fall. I could put it in the co-op sale or donate it to the Ritzville sale. It is finished and that was the goal.

I am close to the saturation point with clothing manufacturing. I need to switch gears and do something else or I run the risk of losing my sew-jo. I did make a dress on Friday:

This is a mashup of Simplicity 9018 (turtleneck dress) with Simplicity 8557 (the red stretch velvet one with the faced neckline). I lengthened it by 3" so it doesn’t hit me right above my knees. The slightly longer length is much better. I kept the 3/4 sleeve length from Simplicity 8557 because it’s perfect for when I’m playing piano at church. Basically, this is the Kohls snowflake dress in a longer length. The fabric is Joanns stretch velvet. I wanted to do a version in a less expensive fabric to make sure that a) I could get the dress out of three yards and b) make absolutely sure I was happy with it before I cut into the Minerva crushed velvet.

This is simple but elegant and may end up being my Christmas dress. If I get the Minerva one run up, great, but if I don’t, this one will be fine. The husband questioned my need to make a specific dress for a one-hour church service, but this would get worn at other times, too.

I sometimes think that because I am sewing clothing for myself, I should be making fancier tops and dresses, but a) fancy is not necessarily my style and b) the goal is to make clothing that fits. Making something that fits properly and is flattering is more important than producing a tour de force of sewing techniques.

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I am knee-deep in organizing social media stuff for the podcast for 2024. It would have been better to do all of this at the beginning, yes, but it involves a fair bit of effort and some extra expense. I wanted to wait and see if the podcast was worth continuing. This is almost like a home renovation project where you put an addition onto your house and attempt to incorporate it into the original structure. I changed domain names, which caused a whole bunch of downstream issues with e-mail addresses and MX records. (Thankfully, I ditched Network Solutions and can now change everything through my Squarespace dashboard.) Instagram has been a nightmare—name changes didn’t take, accounts are managed under Facebook/Meta, and in order to have a business account, you have to create a personal account and then convert it to a business account. I prefer to work on my desktop, not my phone, but some changes can only be made through the phone app. (Really, Meta?) I can’t manage all of this from Metricool until everything is set up properly, and getting everything set up properly means chasing down a thousand tiny details.

Social media is a funny thing. I said to the husband that I am about to give up on YouTube until January. The sewing vlogging community—like blogging, but with video—has been participating in this thing called Vlogmas, where each of them is posting every single day until Christmas. Some of them started in November. I’m over it. I don’t need to see yet another vlogger open her sewing Advent calendar and take out some little notion. I want the longer-form videos that include end-of-the-year reviews and sewing plans for next year.

You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch . . .

I wonder if any of them look at their analytics to see if something like Vlogmas actually makes their views decrease instead of increase. There is such a thing as oversaturation.

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We got an update on the truck Friday. Installation of the toolboxes and racks should be completed by next Friday, December 22. The fleet manager from Tacoma Dodge—who has been absolutely amazing throughout this whole process—will go to Seattle to inspect the truck personally to make sure everything is as it should be. If it isn’t, he will wait until they make it right. He will drive the truck back to Tacoma for us. We should be able to pick it up the week after Christmas. My only concern is the weather, because the longer-range forecasts are showing some storms that week. Of course, that could change, but I am keeping an eye on the forecasts.

Upgrading My Tech

I had a haircut scheduled for noon yesterday, so I went into town early to run errands. My list was long. It included a stop at Best Buy to purchase a new laptop. I have been using DD#2’s hand-me-down Macbook Pro, purchased in 2013. I’m doing enough Zoom interviews and meetings now that it’s not keeping up. I’d also like to have something I can use when traveling. I bought a Macbook Air, which is plenty for what I need.

After that, I headed to the Verizon store to see about a new iPad. Mine has been randomly locking me out, requiring a restart, and recently, the touch screen has been glitchy. The kid who was helping me pulled up my account and said, “Oh, I see you have a Gen 2 iPad! You know they’ve come out with 14 newer models since you bought that, right?” (I knew it was old, but not quite how old.) We’ve been with Verizon for 12 years, so I got some nice loyalty discounts and walked out of there with a 9th gen iPad.

I spent a chunk of money, yes, but I’m not capriciously replacing devices every year.

The husband fixed my favorite frying pan for me:

I have a Farberware 12" frying pan I received as a wedding present 34 years ago. This little helper handle fell off a few weeks ago. It was in pretty bad shape, which is why it had fallen off. I’ve already replaced the main handle once. An eBay seller had the helper handle for sale, so I ordered it. It came in the mail on Wednesday, and by the time I got home from Missoula, the husband had attached it for me.

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Anna Graham at Noodlehead has come out with a new bag pattern—yay! This one is called the Oxbow Tote:

I buy every pattern she releases and have made most of them. I may use this as a carrot for getting those generator covers made. I’ll reward myself with this project once the covers are done. I’d like to do a bag start to finish on the 1541, and I have plenty of canvas—waxed and otherwise—to play around with.

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My neighbor, Theresa, stopped by last night with a gift for me. She and her husband went to Vienna and Munich to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary and visited all the Christmas markets there. She brought me a beautiful apron, which deserves its own blog post. The fabric comes with some history, too, and I want to research that a bit more before writing about it.

A Lovely Day for a Road Trip

Robin and I went to Missoula yesterday. At this time of year, our valleys can get socked in under inversions—cloud layers that sink down and make everything gray and sad for days at a time—but as we drove south, we exited an inversion straight into brilliant sunshine. The entire day stayed sunny and bright.

Robin has been shopping for a new sewing machine. We went to A Clean Stitch, the Janome dealer in Missoula. We will not shop at or take our machines in to be serviced at the dealer here in Kalispell (We both have Janome 6600s.) Robin has been kicking around the idea of trading in her 6600 for a larger machine. I reminded her that I was with her the first time we stopped in at A Clean Stitch to look at the new Janome machines, and that was almost two years ago. These things take time and consideration.

While she was deciding which of the new machines she wanted to order, I dashed over to Walmart to check out the remnant rack. It was full, but I didn’t see anything I needed. I went back to get her and we headed to Vicki’s Quilts Down Under. If we ever need specific fabrics for quilt projects, Vicki’s is the place to go. Robin found a border for one of her quilt projects and I came out with two yards of Robert Kaufman Trainers French terry in black. I have a Nancy Raglan in the Spruce color and it has worn like iron.

By then it was time for lunch, so we went over to the Montana Club. I had a reuben sandwich and Robin had gyro sliders. I cannot stand the smell of corned beef when it is cooking, but I do like reuben sandwiches (go figure) and this one was excellent.

The Joann Fabrics in Missoula looks as awful as ours does. We left without finding anything. Our last stop in town was The Confident Stitch downtown. Robin bought a bit more quilt fabric and I picked up this Jalie pattern:

I have a couple of long tunics in this style from Kohls that are looking very worn and could stand to be replaced.

We stopped at the Amish store on the way home. I bought more Clear-Jel—I used most of mine making apple pie filling in September—and each of us had a cup of ice cream. Their ice cream comes from Wilcoxson’s, which I think is in Billings, and it reminds me of the kind my grandmother used to serve at her ice cream parlor in Ohio when I was growing up. (Lorain Creamery, for my Ohio peeps.) The store is quite generous with the servings, too.

The BMW drove beautifully, although the husband seems convinced that some other part is about to fail and the check engine light will come on again. I think he has been traumatized by that car.

We got home just as dark was falling. Robin’s new machine is supposed to come in no later than the first of the year. We may be making a return trip to get it. A Clean Stitch is the same store where I taught the Bernina serger mastery class in October, and I have another serger mastery class on the schedule there for early February. The owners are finishing off the classroom space—we heard all the construction noises while we were in the store—so we’re holding off scheduling spring classes until that space is ready.

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I think my two upcoming projects will be making a Simplicity 9018 dress out of some black stretch velvet—the same as that purple stretch velvet from a few weeks ago—and changing the neckline on the Simplicity 8557—the red stretch velvet dress—to the mock turtle neckline. I only have three yards of the Minerva stretch velvet and I am not sure I can get the longer Simplicity 9018 dress out of it. I’ll have to see. I’m not intending for the black stretch velvet dress to be my Christmas dress, but it will be nice to have something cozy to wear in January.

And we’re awaiting an update on the status of the husband’s work truck. Hopefully soon.

Sometimes Simpler is Better

I have been so mired in seemingly endless pattern adjustments that I haven’t been feeling very positive about my fitting skills lately. I like that red stretch velvet dress I made, but I am not crazy about the neckline. I find myself wanting to wear that snowflake swing dress from Kohls ALL THE TIME, partly because I like the mock turtleneck. When I keep reaching for a piece over and over, I try to figure out why. Is it the fabric? The fit? Something else?

I pulled this pattern out of my collection to play around with it:

I have no intention of making either a bodycon dress or top. Much as I wish otherwise, I simply cannot wear close-fitting tops. Anything that hugs my body at and below my bust only makes my bust look that much bigger. That neckline is identical to the one on the snowflake dress, though.

[At some point, I hope to be able to make these kinds of simple alterations without relying on patterns, but for now, I am using the training wheels available to me.]

I traced the pattern for my bust size and made the standard changes of lowering the waistline and lengthening the entire top. That was easy with this pattern because the pattern pieces are for the dress, with marked cutting lines for the top. Still, I added a good 4" to the length of the top. I have a pretty good idea now of how long tops have to be in order not to look out of proportion on my body. I also graded out to the next size below the bust, not because I need the additional width for my waist and hips—I don’t—but because I didn’t want it to cling to my midsection and make my bust look bigger.

[I don’t necessarily think of myself as tall, because the husband and both our girls are taller than me, but when I am with a group of women, I feel like I am towering over most of them.]

I used a fine-gauge brushed sweater knit from the Walmart remnant rack in a bright navy. Once cut, it only took about half an hour to construct, although I had to un-sew the shoulders and redo them because I didn’t have right sides together. It was late in the afternoon, getting dark in my sewing room, and even though I thought I checked to make sure which side was which, something got turned around.

I put on the top to evaluate it just as the husband was coming in for dinner. I like it. A lot. The fit at the bust and shoulders is perfect. I still have to attach the mock turtleneck and hem the sleeves and bottom, which is why I have no photo yet. I think this pattern may work perfectly for my Christmas dress. I’ll retrace it at dress length—although not as long as the one the model is wearing—and make it up in the Minvera crushed velvet.

I feel a bit better about my fitting skills now.

I’ve also got several other lengths of similar sweater knits that have been waiting for a suitable pattern to come along. I am hoping this is the one.

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While we are discussing necklines, I’ll mention my pet peeve about V-necks. I see lots of fashion advice indicating that V-necks are flattering for women with larger bustlines. They are. However, most V-neck tops—both ready-to-wear and in patterns—are so low in the V that they expose my bra. Unlike small-busted women, we cannot wear dainty little plunge bras from Victoria’s Secret. Sometimes, depending on the style of the top, I can wear a camisole bra, but not always.

I’m not alone in this. Karina at the Lifting Pins and Needles YouTube channel almost always raises the neckline when she makes a V-neck top. I wish designers would consider undergarments when designing, because we’re not running around naked under our clothing. (At least I’m not.)

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I am not going to record any additional podcasts for 2023. I want to get all the social media stuff straightened out and start the new year with a fresh slate. I’ve started organizing tax stuff and I would like to do a closet purge and take a few other things to the thrift store after the holidays.

Friends Who Sew

Yesterday was a full day. I had an appointment in the morning, I ran errands, had a mid-afternoon meeting at church to plan the Christmas Eve service, then had another meeting after dinner for the homestead foundation.

One of my errands yesterday was to find and purchase the correct metric tap that would allow the husband to finish the repair on the BMW. I took the Acura to church Sunday morning so he could replace the emissions sensor that was causing the check engine light to be illuminated. When I got home, the BMW was still on the lift. Apparently, when he took the module with the old sensor out, a bolt sheared off (?) and he couldn’t put the module with the new sensor back in because he didn’t have a way to get the remnants of the bolt out. After my appointment, I stopped in at Fastenal, but they didn’t have the size he needed. I ended up at Harbor Freight, and after several minutes of searching and several phone conversations with the husband—accompanied by texted photos—I was able to find the tap and die set he needed.

[When I see a man in Joann Fabrics, I always ask if he needs help finding anything, because I know what it’s like to have to wander around in unfamiliar territory looking for some tool.]

The BMW is back together and running. The husband came in last night after finishing the repair and said, “Drive it and see if the check engine light comes back on. Something else is probably about to fail.”

Needless to say, there was no sewing yesterday. I did get some deliveries of fabric, though. This is the Minerva crushed velvet, in the colorway Celestial:

I may still make a Christmas dress from this, but not until I am 100% sure I have the pattern dialed in.

I also ordered some French terry from KnitFabric.com for a another Burda 6315 top:

I have to finish editing this week’s podcast so I can post it this morning. This one features an interview with Kerry Brown, who owns Strong Roots Resources and is also a member of Nicole Sauce’s Living Free in Tennessee community. Over the past several years, he has developed his interest in permaculture and edible landscaping into a thriving consulting business. At Nicole’s Spring Workshop last year, he and I chatted a bit about his grandmother, Nan, who taught him to sew and quilt on her Singer 99 machine. When I started the podcast, we made plans to have him be a guest and share that story.

I also got a text message yesterday from my friend Marcie’s daughter-in-law. Marcie’s DIL was with us in that deck collapse in 2017 and broke her back when she fell. She was able to recover and walk again, but she has a lot of pain as a result of the accident. She texted me yesterday to say she was taking a sewing class at the local city college in southern California. It was so good to hear from her and to know that she enjoyed her sewing class so much.

I’m not sure what’s on my schedule for the rest of this week. I need to do some brainstorming and organizing for 2024. I want to trace some patterns so they are ready to go when inspiration strikes. I’d like to get some quilt tops sandwiched with batting and backing. I think the next quilt top I make is going to be using the Creative Grids 8 inch Curvy Log Cabin ruler. I have no shortage of things to keep me busy.

Why It's Called Pattern Hacking

I made up the frankenpatterned Easton Cowl/Burda 6329 top. Fabric is a Walmart rayon spandex. I like this version, but I was so focused on fitting the bottom half of the bodice (much better) that I wasn’t addressing the problems I have with the cowl.

It’s not readily apparent on the dress form, but it is when I am wearing the top. The neckline is very wide, and on my broad shoulders, it looks even wider. Think cowl neck on a bateau neckline. The cowl portion does not hang nicely as it does here on the form. It pulls itself into a weird shallow V shape. It’s not awful, but I can tell that something isn’t right.

It’s possible I need to widen the pattern at the shoulders. I don’t think so based on where the shoulder seam sits, although I am allowing for that possibility. What I think I need to do is to bring the sides of that cowl shaping in closer to the neck and make the neckline more rounded. On the pattern, it would look like this:

I would cut that shoulder line in further, either by an inch (leftmost line) or 1-1/2" (right line). Ignore that other sketched-in line. I would make the corresponding adjustment on the back bodice piece.

Theoretically, this should make the neckline rounder and allow that cowl to relax a bit. If you have thoughts, comment below. This is a fairly fast make, especially now that I have figured out how do all of it on my serger and coverstitch. I could run up another version to test my idea.

I realize that at some point, this top may no longer resemble the original Easton Cowl. (My apologies to Liesel Gibson.) This is why it’s called pattern hacking—you just keep hacking away at the pattern until you get it to fit your body.

That was yesterday’s sort-of-win. Before I tackled that top, though, I worked on the project the husband brought me a few days ago. He has a new hydraulic concrete saw and it’s too long for the carrying bag. He wanted to know if I could make an opening in the end of the bag for the blade with the guard on it. If he weren’t married to me, he might have simply slashed a hole in the end of the bag and called it a day, but because we have the knowledge and the equipment, we did it properly.

The bag was constructed from a couple of layers of Cordura. I got out one of my Cordura scraps—in a matching color, even—and talked through with him what I planned to do. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing some crucial spatial element. Also, because he was going to help me with the sewing, I wanted him to know what the steps were. I hate being asked to help with a project and having no idea what is supposed to happen, so I try not to do that to other people.

This is where my bagmaking experience came in handy. I planned to make a welt opening in the end of the bag by sewing a piece of scrap Cordura over the place he wanted the opening. The welt would be in the shape of a long, narrow rectangle. By cutting open the center of that rectangle, I could pull the scrap piece of Cordura through to the inside and topstitch it down around the opening, effectively binding the edges of the opening to keep them from fraying.

We also had to take the steel frame pieces out of the top of the bag (sewists, think Poppins bag). I opened a few stitches of the binding below the frame and the husband pulled the frame pieces out. That made the bag flexible enough that I could turn it inside out and maneuver it underneath the machine, although the husband still had to help me by supporting the bag over the machine while I sewed.

It’s not my best sewing—I was working blind in a few spots because of the position of the bag, and the husband was trying to support the bag and hold a flashlight over the bed of the machine for me because I had to take the light off to make room for the bag—but it’s functional:

We put the steel frame pieces back into their channels and I sewed those closed. The saw now fits in the bag and everyone is happy:

I still have two generator covers to make, and the husband noted that a cover for the new hydraulic pump that powers this saw would not go amiss, either.

Miles of Binding

We got an e-mail late yesterday afternoon from the fleet manager in Tacoma. The husband’s new work truck finally arrived at the dealer. It is scheduled to go to the body shop on Monday to have the toolboxes and racks installed. Once that work is complete, we will be able to go get it. Yay.

We got almost 6” of snow yesterday. It snowed for about 12 hours. This was the radar over our house, and it looked like this for most of the day. That blob of precipitation didn’t move:

We are in a very strange topographical niche here. We always get more snow than the rest of our neighborhood. That makes it very hard to know what’s going on in the rest of the valley. I often think it doesn’t occur to the road department to send the plows up here when we’re getting hammered because they look out the window and see rain.

I made the binding for the quilt and attached it. I got one side sewn down last night:

Only three more sides to go. I went with a gray binding because I wanted to “frame” the quilt. The binding is not anywhere as dark as it looks in the photo. It’s more of a medium gray, but this is what you get at 4 am in December in my living room. I do like that the binding picks up the darker colors in the top. I’m not a fan of light-colored bindings because I think they get dirty too easily.

I might swap our bed quilt out for this one over the summer—they are the same quilt in different colors—but I will have to keep the husband from sitting on it.

Making and attaching the binding took most of the morning, after which I worked on cleaning and organizing my sewing space. I am still trying to decide what to do about all these leftover pieces of apparel fabric. Many of them are large enough to use for linings or colorblocking, but I can’t keep everything just because I might have a use for it someday. (I could, but I risk being buried under an avalanche of fabric.) I felt much better after I corralled all the leftovers and put them in a large bag. I can’t work if things are too cluttered.

I feel like I am finally getting close to the end of my closet makeover. It’s too bad it took four decades of ill-fitting ready-to-wear to get to this point. I still have a few things I want to make, but the collection is looking a lot more coherent now. I also feel like I have more of these fitting issues under control.

I am ready for a change of pace. This is the time of year when I feel compelled to tidy up all the loose ends in preparation for starting afresh. I’m already looking ahead well into February.

The Annual Sewing Christmas Party

We had our sewing group Christmas party yesterday. I may not get to sewing every Thursday, but I do enjoy our parties. This was a potluck luncheon and we had enough food to feed an army. We do a gift swap—everyone who wants to participate brings a wrapped gift, which gets a number. Each of us draws a number, the gifts get passed out, and we start at #1 and open them. Sometimes the gifts are quilt- or sewing-related. Sometimes they contain food or home dec items. They almost always have chocolate in them. The bag I received held a lovely cheese board, cheese knives, some cheese and crackers, and holiday tea towels. (And a jar of salted chocolate caramels.)

Robin gave me a painted wooden sign that says, “Jesus is the Reason for the Season,” which I hung on my kitchen door.

I sometimes hang a wreath there but haven’t gotten one this season.

Sarah gifted me a bag of goodies as a thank-you for the load of chicken manure we hauled up to her house in September. I really think I got the better end of the deal. 😇 It included half a dozen bars of soap—the husband took the lavender-scented ones, because he is quite partial to lavender—a candle, more salted caramels (there is a pattern here), and a beautiful handwoven tea towel.

Sarah told me that only people she considers “family” get a handwoven gift. I am so lucky to have such wonderful friends!

I wore a holiday dress to the party—a very simple swing dress from Kohls. The fabric is a beefy rayon spandex.

Everyone assumed I had made it. I might have, if I had had similar fabric. This was an impulse purchase, for sure, although it fits well and is very comfortable.

I ran errands in town before the party and picked up some fabric for the binding for the king-sized quilt. I need a bit more than a yard and none of my Kona remnants was big enough. The quilt is so scrappy that I wanted a solid color binding to frame it. That’s the first order of business today—make and attach the binding it so I can sew it down in the evenings. The second task on the list is organizing the room where I store my fabric, because it looks like a tornado went through there. I want to find all the projects that need to be quilted and stack them up next to the Q20.

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We are still waiting to hear about the new work truck, although now that choir practice on Wednesday evenings has been canceled, that opens up the schedule quite a bit for going to Tacoma to retrieve it. Work has slowed down for the husband a bit, but that is temporary. He and the crew will be starting a big foundation project next week.

I heard an ad yesterday on the radio from a local real estate agent. He was hawking a piece of property in our neighborhood. I looked it up last night so the husband and I could have a good laugh. It’s a 2 bedroom, 1 bath house built in 1978, total of 1296 square feet on 2.38 acres with septic and a shared well. (Ask the husband some time about the quality of houses built here in the 1970s and 80s and you’ll get an earful.) The real estate agent described it as a “fixer-upper” because it’s been mostly gutted. Any guesses on the asking price? I’d offer around $100,000 for it, max.

The listing price is $399,000. THAT IS INSANE. I don’t even think the land is worth that, let alone the house. A shared well is a problem. Another hundred thousand or so will be required to make it liveable. That listing is the poster child for how ridiculous the housing market here has become.

Can You Fix This?—Industrial Tools Edition

The husband brought me another sewing project this week.

That is the end of a very large bag—it’s about 4 feet long by 18” wide and it’s intended to carry one of his concrete saws. (A not-insignificant part of his business is cutting holes in concrete walls, usually for egress windows.) The saw is too long for the bag. He wondered if I could make an opening for the blade of the saw, with its guard on, to stick out of the end of the bag.

Theoretically, yes. And it wouldn’t even be that complicated, except for the fact that I cannot sew an opening into the end of this bag while simultaneously balancing the other 4 feet of it over my head. I told him I could probably do it if he would stand next to me and support the bag. I got out some Cordura scraps—red, even—and I think we will tackle it this weekend. I will sew a piece of Cordura where I want the opening, cut it, turn the facing in, and sew it down, much like making a welt opening for a zipper. The 1541 should handle the sewing easily. Theoretically.

I got the eight yards of UV-coated fabric I ordered from Seattle Fabrics, and now I have no excuse not to work on generator covers.

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I did another interview for the podcast yesterday. I continue to be tickled by the fact that there are quite a few people who want to listen to me blather on about sewing for 30 minutes. The analytics are exceeding my expectations. I am hoping to have more interviews—and a bit less of me blathering—after the first of the year. This is just such a busy time.

We had our church choir practice last night, but it looks like we won’t be having a church choir. (See comment about this time of year, above.) We have enough for a double quartet, but not enough for the songs I had chosen. They require an actual choir with more than one or two people on a part. We are especially lean on the lower parts. The eight of us who came to practice decided that we would work up an acapella piece. That way, I can sing, too, either alto or tenor. And we’re all accomplished-enough musicians that we’ll only need one or two practices.

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I’m making progress on the clothing front, even though some days I feel like the young woman in Rumpelstiltstkin required to spin a room full of straw into gold. I have a lot of straw. Yesterday, I put together two pairs of Linda pants—they need hemming—and a top from the McCall’s 8022 pattern that I made with some stable athletic knit from the Walmart remnant rack. (It also needs hemming.) That athletic knit is very interesting. On the front, it looks like normal jersey fabric:

But on the back, it almost looks like a twill weave, except that it is knitted.

Machine knitting and hand knitting are not always a 1:1 swap—there are stitches that machines do that are hard to replicate with hand knitting and vice versa.

I shortened this latest iteration to a top; I do like the dress length but didn’t have enough of this fabric.

And I am frankenpatterning stuff left and right. In my quest for some nice church-wear basics, I pulled out a few pieces of rayon spandex for a couple of Easton cowls. I love the cowl neck part of that top but I have never been happy with the fit of the lower bodice. Even lengthening it didn’t help. I am going to try a version where I combine the top of the Easton cowl with the bottom of the Burda 6329, which is the raglan top with the neck pleats. I really like the way the bottom half of that one fits.

We’ll see. It’ll either be great or an unqualified disaster.

I am having to write very detailed notes on my pattern pieces to keep track of all these changes and iterations. I only throw out original tracings if it’s obvious they aren’t going to work at all, because sometimes I want to go back and use them for something else.

At some point, I suspect, I may give up on commercial patterns altogether and just start drafting tops from my own bodice blocks.

Ottoman Rib and a Costco Find

Knitting friends, I have a question. I am almost afraid to ask it because I feel like I should know the answer, but I am not coming up with exactly what I want. I am tempted to shoot off a note to Lily Chin, because I am pretty sure she’ll know what I’m talking about, but maybe someone else knows.

Around the same time that I was publishing Twists and Turns, there was another print magazine called KnittingNOW. One of their issues included a pattern for an ottoman rib cardigan. I thought I had every issue, but that particular issue seems to have gone on walkabout. (It is possible I am imagining the existence of this pattern, but I don’t think so.)

Here’s the thing. I cannot pin down hand knitting instructions for anything called ottoman rib. I suspect it is several rows of stockinette separated by a row of purl stitches—making it a horizontal ribbing pattern rather than a vertical one—but it would be nice to have the “official” pattern if one exists. Googling “ottoman rib knit stitch” brings up a lot of vertical ribbing patterns as well as references to machine knitting. The Bosforus Textiles website has this to say about ottoman rib:

Ottoman Rib Knit Fabric is mostly an interlock fabric that consists of two full interlock courses followed by six half-gauge jersey courses knitted on the effect side of the fabric. Ottoman Rib Knit Fabric is characterised by horizontal relief ridges on the effect side. Ottoman Rib Knit Fabrics can also be made on a rib basis instead of an interlock basis, and on a knit-tuck basis instead of a knit-miss basis.

That is clearly machine-knitting-speak. I understand what they are describing, but none of those stitches is identical to what I am remembering as the handknitted version.

The reason this has come up—other than me occasionally wondering what black hole devoured that issue of KnittingNOW with the cardigan pattern—is because I was watching a Minerva video the other day that featured the Meet MILK ottoman rib fabric Minerva carries. It looks luscious and comes in lots of wonderful colors. Go look:

And it got me to thinking about that pattern again. JC, is there anything in the Stitch Maps database? Or maybe someone has that elusive issue of KnittingNOW? Not that I would actually knit myself a cardigan when I could buy some of that fabric and sew myself one . . .

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You know you are an adult when you find something new and exciting at Costco and it makes your entire day:

I love Better than Bouillon. I haven’t seen this one before and I think it will make a nice addition to the pasta e fagioli soup I make.

I finished quilting the cream-and-white top yesterday morning. I’ll trim it today and figure out what I want to use for binding. The top has bits of gray fabric in it so I suspect the binding will be gray as well. I am happy to have that done and looking forward to getting some smaller projects quilted now that the bottleneck has cleared.

Our local community organization is hosting a kids’ Christmas Gift Workshop this weekend and Susan asked me for some of my knit fabric scraps. I was only too happy to pass along a large bag of them.

A Quilt, a Tunic, and a Blackberry Heart

I spent a couple of hours working on the quilt yesterday afternoon. It is very close to being done. I need to put another hour’s worth of quilting time into it and then it will be ready for binding. The Q20 is supposed to be on the schedule for service soon. The tech has to come out here to service it because that machine is too big and unwieldy for me to take it out of the table for transport. I hope to be heading into 2024 with the machine serviced and ready to take on the stack of projects backed up behind this cream-and-white quilt.

I like the quilting pattern I chose for this top, but it was a lot of work even though it was a simple design. Free motion loops would have been faster and easier. I’m not likely to do another king-sized top for a while.

The husband has been chasing down a problem with the ground heater, a piece of equipment he needs in the winter to be able to pour concrete. We bought it used—they are expensive and hard to find—and he has had to tinker with it on and off for over a year. It runs, but shuts itself off for no apparent reason. He spent most of the weekend holed up in his shop trying to fix it. We did get more snow yesterday afternoon and I am glad I didn’t try to drive to Coeur d’Alene. Warm weather (and more precipitation) is headed in from the Pacific, though. The high tomorrow is supposed to be close to 50F.

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I’ve got that McCall’s 8022 top dialed in. I made a second muslin out of some rayon French terry (Walmart), although the fabric was a bit drapier than I anticipated. I also determined that the best tunic length on me is 31" down from my shoulder, so I will adjust the pattern accordingly.

The McCall’s pattern was designed by the late Nancy Zieman, and there is a video for it on the Stitch It! Sisters YouTube channel:

I watched the video AFTER I made the top, and I had to laugh at myself because I didn’t follow any of the instructions. I left off the pocket—reviewers commented that it was too small to be useful and I am not one for pockets in my clothes anyway—and I assembled the top entirely on my serger. They use a sewing machine in the video. I also lowered the cap of the sleeve a bit as it was too high for the armscye. I’m finding that happens a lot when designers who are used to working with wovens design something for a knit. The instructions indicate it should be ease stitched but I prefer to adjust the cap to better fit the armscye.

If you haven’t read Nancy Zieman’s autobiography, Seams Unlikely, I highly recommend it:

She started her business in a spare bedroom, moving it to her in-laws’ basement as it got bigger and then eventually to warehouse space. One of the stories that has stuck with me was about when she went to the bank to ask for a loan. As was often the case back in the 70s and 80s, the loan officer patted her on the head and said that the bank couldn’t loan her money for her “little hobby.” Her MIL marched into the bank and suggested the loan officer look at how much money Nancy’s business had on deposit in his bank and reconsider his decision. (He did.)

I am having great fun with my anatomical embroidery project:

I have been working on the blood vessels (in satin stitch) for the past couple of evenings. The leaves are getting their ribs outlined in stem stitch, and I have a few more berries and flower centers to do in French knots. I haven’t decided which pattern to tackle next—maybe the cranium?

[I imagine these creations of mine being passed down to grandchildren and great-grandchildren and I wonder if they are going to ask themselves why Grandma found it necessary to embroider macabre medical illustrations . . . LOL]

I am not sure yet what sewing projects will be on the docket for this week. I did cut out a pair of StyleArc Linda pants in some dark red bengaline from Joanns. Those won’t take long to assemble. I have been taking notes while getting dressed for church, because that is still where the holes seem to be in my wardrobe. I have tops with no coordinating bottoms and vice versa, so I am trying to address that.

I Will Try to Write a Different Sermon

“Try” being the operative word.

I pulled up the Fat Quarter Shop livestream on YouTube yesterday morning and sat myself down at the Q20 to work on quilting the king-sized top. I finished the third quadrant and thought briefly about starting the fourth one, but it takes a fair bit of effort to maneuver that thing across the table. My shoulders were feeling it. I can see the finish line though—and binding it won’t be a hardship—so I decided to leave it until next week. I’ll be happy to get it done by the end of the year.

I found someone to take my spot in the Amanda Murphy class. One of the women who works at the quilt store in town has a cousin who lives in Coeur d’Alene. Both of them were in the first serger class I ever taught here in Kalispell. I got the cousin’s phone number and called to ask if she wanted to take my spot. She was delighted. She shops at that store and indeed, when I called the store back to tell them about the arrangement, the staffperson knew exactly who she was. If I can’t take the class, I am glad she will be able to.

My phone beeped with a text from the Washington State DOT yesterday morning while I was quilting. Snoqualmie Pass was getting hammered with snow, and they had to close I-90 because of an accident involving 30 spun-out semis who hadn’t chained up. 😮

Posted here because we have to remind people not to be stupid (the guy in shorts and flip-flops is particularly entertaining):

The Flathead Valley is under a Winter Weather Advisory today. Thankfully, I do not have to go anywhere. I think the husband is planning to replace the emissions sensor in The Diva, which should make the check engine light go out—for a few days, at least, until some other part decides to give up the ghost.

We got an e-mail from the dealer in Tacoma that the husband’s new work truck is already under a recall and it hasn’t even arrived yet. We will still be able to pick it up before Christmas, but he’ll have to take it in to the dealer here some time in January when the part is available. I am starting to sound like a broken record, but this kind of stuff is reaching unimaginable levels of ridiculousness. It would be nice if we could make things that don’t break before they even get used.

We did get a welcome piece of mail this week, though:

With four businesses in Montana, it will be nice not to have to shell out the filing fees for 2024.

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I retraced the McCall’s pattern yesterday afternoon but have not had a chance to cut it out yet. I had to stop and think about what seamlines I wanted to grade out, because there are a total of six—two princess seams in front, two in back, and two side seams. Grading all of them to the next size would have added way too much ease, so I only graded out the side seams.

I think I might have a big cutting session today and line up half a dozen projects. Once this quilt top is done, I’d like to attack a few more things in the quilting queue. My embroidery projects are coming along nicely, though. They are fun to work on in the evenings.

Some Days, There is a Lot of Friction

Do I know any quilters in the Spokane/Coeur d’Alene area? I am registered for the Amanda Murphy ruler class being hosted by Becky’s Sewing Center in CdA on Monday, December 4. The forecast for travel over the passes this weekend is not good, so I am looking for someone to take my spot. (Surprisingly, the store does not seem to keep a waiting list for classes like this.) I am a capable winter driver, but willingly venturing out into those kinds of conditions is just dumb. If you’re interested, contact me at Janet K Szabo at gmail dot com. (Take out the spaces.) I am completely bummed about this because a class with Amanda is a rare opportunity, for sure.

I went ahead and ordered the crushed velvet fabric from Minerva. It remains to be seen whether it will become this year’s Christmas outfit or not, but it should get here in time. I received a shipping notice yesterday. I also ordered some softshell fabric (hot pink) for the Itch to Stitch Andes Jacket and eight yards of UV-coated heavy Cordura for generator covers from Seattle Fabrics. They were having a Black Friday sale this week and it seemed like a good time. I told the husband I would try to make generator covers over Christmas break.

Yesterday morning, I ran up a muslin of this pattern:

I do like princess seams and the way they fit. I am glad I made a muslin, first, using some scraps of cotton interlock. I was worried about the fit through the bust, but the size L fit well there. I will have to grade out a bit at the waist, though, because apparently Ryliss was correct about me being a rectangle.

I’ve got some chunks of French terry in the stash for this one as well as an athletic knit that I found on a WalMart remnant rack. I’m also kicking around the idea of lengthening it 4-5” and turning it into a dress.

Slowly but surely, I am getting a good stack of basic patterns to hack into the pieces I need.

I left for town around noon. The husband and I had an appointment at the bank at 3 pm to sign the loan paperwork for his new work truck and I had a few errands to run. My first stop was the quilt store south of town. The store has Open Sew on Thursdays and I hoped I might see Tera there. Not only was she there, but so were about 30 other women and their machines. I thought I had interrupted a class.

[The husband gets a lot of mileage out of this, because men do not have “open” anything. He cannot imagine a situation where men would get together to work on their projects and visit. He wonders how much work women actually get done and I have to remind him that sometimes, that is not the point.]

I caught up with Tera, then went into the store and bought some embroidery thread I need for my anatomical botanical pattern.

The rest of my errand-running was frustrating. It started to snow—which was not in the forecast—and it just seemed like everywhere I went, everything took five times as long as it needed to, for exceptionally stupid reasons. I hate inefficiency. The husband, fount of Stoic wisdom, reminded me that “Some days, there is a lot of friction.”

We met at the bank and signed the loan paperwork. Our construction company accounts are at a local community bank. The guy who was our loan officer there for two decades is now the bank president. We have a different loan officer now, but the former loan officer-now-president always comes over to visit with us when we’re in there. We’re all set to go pick up the new work truck as soon as we get a call from the dealer in Tacoma that it is ready.

I managed to get home without some out-of-state transplant unfamiliar with winter driving conditions hitting my car. That’s always a plus.

I think today will be devoted to working on the cream-and-white quilt top. I’d really like to get it done and off the Q20. I’ll see if I can get a whole quadrant quilted this morning. It’s also time to start working on Christmas choir music. Practice begins next week.

Pants Perfection and Pumpkin Pie

I had two projects on the schedule yesterday. The first was to run up another pair of pants to test the changes we made to the StyleArc Linda pants in my class last week. Ryliss showed me how far back to move that inseam. I tested the adjustment using some black bengaline from Joanns. The pants fit perfectly. I can’t get them to fit any better. Having them on feels like I am not wearing anything, which is my litmus test for the perfect fit. I can move around, sit down, and get up without any binding or shifting. The side seams and inseams hang straight, right where they should.

I said to the husband over dinner that thinking about pants and pants fitting is occupying a great deal of my brain these days. I discovered some YouTube videos yesterday about using the top-down, center-out method of pants fitting to fit pull-on pants—until now, everything I had seen involved fitting pants with zipper flies. I’ll get to those eventually, but now I want to figure out how to offer a class on fitting a pair of top-down, center-out pull-on pants. One of my students and I are going to try fitting a pants pattern to her after the holidays, and I think I’ll use her as a guinea pig for that method.

I recognize that I have had a relatively easy time of fitting these Linda pants to myself. Literally all I had to do was to lengthen the front and back rises and adjust the position of that inseam. The waist and hips required no adjustments. I need the challenge of fitting pants to a different kind of body shape.

[Ryliss pronounced me a “rectangle,” an assessment I am still trying to wrap my head around. I’ve always thought of rectangles as not having much of a waistline, whereas mine is well defined. Apparently, though, that doesn’t automatically put me in the hourglass category. The fashion advice I see for rectangle body shapes advises wearing styles with belts and waistbands to provide figure definition, but I’ve avoided those my entire life because my torso is so long that belts and waistbands are never in the right place. Now that I can make my own clothing, though, I might experiment with some of those styles.]

Once the pants were made and hemmed, I pulled out this pattern:

I bought this pattern last year—and traced it, too, so it was ready to go—thinking I would make it up in a fancy fabric as a possible Christmas dress. I even had three yards of Hobby Lobby red stretch velvet (bought on clearance) for making a muslin. If it bombed, I was out a few dollars. If it worked, I potentially had a Christmas dress should I lack the time to make something else. And that Hobby Lobby stretch velvet was nice to work with—much nicer than its Joann Fabrics counterpart.

The design is dead simple: a front, a back, and two sleeves. I knew that the tricky part, though, was going to be finishing that neckline. Sometimes the simpler designs are technically difficult because there are fewer places to hide mistakes. The pattern specified finishing the neckline with polyester bias tape. Ick. No thank you. I considered making a facing, but decided that was too bulky. I auditioned some fold-over elastic, but truly, FOE is the devils’s spawn. (I’ll master it one of these days.) I finally settled on using a length of the burgundy knit from that franken-raglan as a bias binding. That worked reasonably well. I sewed it to the neckline, turned it to the inside, and coverstitched it down.

(I have no idea why the photo is tilted like that.)

I may still make this up again in a different fabric. I am wondering if I can order some of that printed stretch velvet from Minerva (in the UK) and get it in time to make another dress. This style isn’t fancy or showy, but when I am playing piano, I don’t want fussy clothing. I really like the length of those sleeves, too, because I also hate fabric flopping around my wrists.

We’ll see. I am still thinking on this.

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From the “feeding the gaping maw” department, I made the husband a couple of pumpkin pies on Monday. This is the pumpkin I grew in the garden and canned. When I got up Tuesday morning, this was what was left of the first pie:

People do not believe me when I tell them how much food he consumes. I am glad we had girls and not teenage boys to feed.

A Delightful Thanksgiving

I checked out of my Airbnb on Wednesday morning and headed to the ferry terminal in Edmonds, WA. DD#1’s in-laws live over on the Olympic peninsula and the ferry is (usually) the quickest way to get there. However, the State of Washington is having some issues with its ferry system. The Edmonds-Kingston route is down to one boat, so instead of leaving every hour or so, the westbound ferry was only leaving every 90 minutes. I wanted to be on an early sailing to avoid any potential backups.

My plan was to stop at District Fabric, in Port Townsend, before heading to Port Angeles. DD#2 had suggested I check to make sure they were open, first, so I did that on the ferry ride over. Lo and behold, they were closed on Wednesday. I had to come up with an alternate plan. I’ve wanted to go down and explore Silverdale, so I decided to do that, instead. Silverdale is down near Bremerton, which has a naval base, and I knew there was a Joann Fabrics there.

[GPS and I are a dangerous combination. I will happily drive wherever Google Maps will take me.]

A few years ago, Joanns unveiled their new “concept store” in Columbus, Ohio, and said that eventually all their stores would follow this plan. It’s too bad they haven’t been able to carry through. I was in a similar Joanns store in Portland last June. The Silverdale store was even bigger than the one in Portland. Fabric is organized and displayed on well-labeled racks. I saw apparel fabrics I didn’t know Joanns carried. The cutting table was fully staffed by three people and other employees were working throughout the rest of the store.

I bought two one-yard cuts of swimsuit contour fabric. This is basically what is in Spanx. I am going to try it instead of power mesh or elastic in some of the pants I’m making. I could have gone nuts in there—hot pink stretch cotton sateen? yes, please—but I need to sew up the fabric I already have.

By the time I left Joanns, it was after lunch, so I headed back in the direction of Port Angeles. I stopped at the Walmart in Sequim, to check the remnant rack, and as I walked into the store, I discovered DD#1 standing there. She and DSIL were out running errands for his mom. The two of us went to peruse the remnant rack and chatted along the way. We—DD#2 and her boyfriend and I—were invited to dinner at her in-laws’.

I located the Airbnb, visited the Walmart in Port Angeles, and made my way to the in-laws’ house. After a wonderful dinner of Swedish meatballs, we all went to a Thanksgiving Eve church service. I belong to a Mennonite church here, but I was raised in a Missouri Synod Lutheran church, and the Lutheran part of my upbringing insists on popping up every now and again. DD#1 went to Pacific Lutheran. Her husband went to St. Olaf. Both are Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) colleges. The two of them have attended the Lutheran church in Ketchikan. I used to play piano for one of the ELCA churches here in the Flathead. DSIL’s parents attend a Missouri Synod Lutheran church, so that’s where we went on Wednesday evening. His mom sings in the choir. I sometimes feel like I still have one foot in each denomination.

We were back at the in-laws’ for Thanksgiving Day. Their dishwasher broke Tuesday night—what timing!—so while DSIL’s mom cooked, I washed dishes, and we had a lovely time visiting. This is the third year we’ve spent Thanksgiving with them.

On Friday morning (my birthday) DD#2 and her boyfriend and I stopped in Port Townsend on our way back to Seattle. Port Townsend is a darling little town with lots of shops. My destination was, of course, District Fabric. They focus on apparel fabrics and have everything from silk to wool to rayons to knits. They were also having a 25% off sale. I picked up the Thread Theory Comox Trunks pattern.

I do not need to make knit boxer shorts for the husband, but I might. He did say that if he liked them, I would have to make all his boxer shorts, so I may be creating more work for myself.

Getting back to Seattle was a laborious process. We decided to drive down to Bainbridge Island and take that ferry back to downtown Seattle because that route was running two boats. Even so, they were 20 minutes behind and we had to wait in a long line of cars. We left Port Townsend just after lunch and didn’t get back to Seattle until 4:30 pm. I checked back into the same Airbnb and we had my birthday dinner at Ray’s Boathouse.

On Saturday, the three of us walked a few blocks over from DD#2’s apartment to the German Christmas Market at Seattle Center. I know this is a pale imitation of the real German markets—DD#2 has been to several in Europe—but it was still fun to visit. Nordstrom (DD#2’s employer) was one of the sponsors. I was hoping for currywurst for lunch and I was not disappointed:

I first had currywurst in Dresden when Tera and I went on the National Honor Society trip with our daughters in 2009. I am no fan of ketchup, so it should tell you something that I love currywurst. It is bratwurst smothered in ketchup with curry seasoning on top. I should make it more often.

The weather, as I noted, was stellar all week. Apparently, that was the first dry Thanksgiving in Seattle in decades.

I was missing the husband and missing Montana, so I bugged out of Seattle early on Sunday morning. I also wanted to avoid the holiday traffic over Snoqualmie Pass. I had a nice, easy drive and was home by dinner time.

Sewing School

The Sewing and Design School in Tacoma is a hidden gem. It attracts nationally-known instructors—Kenneth D. King will be teaching a trouser class there in March—and students of the school have gone on to careers in the fashion and fabric industries. I signed up for a two-hour class with Ryliss Bod. I would have taken an all-day class but someone else had snagged the afternoon spot.

Tacoma is about an hour south of Seattle. I am familiar with the area because DD#1 graduated from nearby Pacific Lutheran University. I left Seattle in plenty of time to get to my 9:30 am class and was greeted by Ryliss, who is a bundle of energy. After a few minutes chatting about Sew Expo, because she is familiar with the event and knows I’ll be teaching there in March, we got down to business. Ryliss handed me a length of elastic to tie around my waist and proceeded to take a comprehensive set of measurements.

The husband measured me last spring for my Sew Expo bodice sloper class. He builds houses and is used to dealing with tight tolerances, but measuring angles and edges is different than measuring squishy bodies. Ryliss confirmed a few things about my shape, such as the fact that I have longer-than-average arms. She measured twice because she thought she got it wrong the first time. I also have a long torso, and the rise on all my pants patterns will need to be adjusted as a result. It’s not my imagination.

We looked at the pants I had made and I asked her about the position of the inseam on the Linda pants. She showed me how to move it further back. I had worn the burgundy franken-raglan because I wanted her opinion on the raglan seams. I thought they needed some tweaking, so she re-pinned them and showed me what adjustments needed to be made to the pattern.

I like her approach to fitting. She says that Kenneth King prefers to teach drafting from scratch, whereas she likes to teach fitting by adjusting a commercial pattern. I have found that latter method to be easier for me, which probably has to do with the fact that I like having some kind of example in front of me as opposed to attempting to visualize an end goal in my head.

Two hours wasn’t nearly enough. I will be going back for more classes. Maybe even one with Kenneth D. King if I am lucky.

[On the way over to Seattle, I listened to the recent Bernina Sew and So podcast interview with Kenneth D. King. I’ve listened to a few other interviews with him on the Threads monthly podcast as well. He is a fascinating person.]

The school has several sewing machines and sergers, including this unicorn, a New Home combo machine:

It’s a sewing machine on the front and a serger on the back. Circa 1980s? I wish I had taken a photo of the front of the machine, too, for the model number. I can’t find it via a Google search.

After class, I headed over to Tacoma Mall for lunch at Panera and a stop at the Joann Fabrics store there. That Joanns is large and had a good selection of garment fabrics. I bought an ice blue rayon sweater knit with a cable pattern, destined for a Harper Cardigan for next spring. I also popped in to the Liz Claiborne department at JC Penney to see what the winter collection looked like.

My route back to Seattle included a stop here:

I love Pacific Fabrics. It is in an area of Seattle known as SODO—South of Downtown. It’s a short walk from the light rail station, but I’m not comfortable taking the light rail in Seattle anymore. I prefer to drive, and the store isn’t hard to get to despite being in an industrial area.

Pacific Fabrics used to have several stores in the Seattle area. I went to the one in Northgate a few years ago, close to where DD#1 and her husband lived when he was in dental school at UW, but Pacific Fabrics closed that store as well as the one in Bellevue. This is now their only location. The store is up a flight of steps into a huge room with wood floors and lots of old circular display racks holding bolts of fabric. I bought a floral rayon woven for a blouse for next spring.

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I am glad I have nothing on the calendar for this week, because re-entry after a trip takes some work. I did record a podcast episode yesterday in between laundry and cleaning and a few other tasks. I want to finish quilting that cream and white scrap quilt this month so I can move on to other projects. I also pulled out a pattern I am thinking of using for my Christmas outfit. I’ll test it with some stretch velvet from the stash.

Next week will be busy. Choir practice starts on Wednesday night. And some time before Christmas, the husband and I have to shoehorn in a trip back to Tacoma to pick up his new work truck.

Sewing in Seattle

I am back from barnstorming the Pacific Northwest. I had an excellent trip and a wonderful birthday. Let’s start the recap:

I left here the morning of Friday, November 18. The weather was clear and I had zero problems getting over the passes, probably because I had packed as if I were going to Siberia, including two coats, two pairs of boots, and all my cold-weather car supplies. I planned to spend the night in Spokane and arrived just after lunch. That gave me a few hours to hit up the Walmart remnant racks and see what the Joann Fabrics stores looked like.

The first half-dozen chunks of fabric I bought at Walmart were all navy blue. Some are destined to be used as muslins and some for actual garments. I need a bit more navy in my wardrobe, so this was not an unwelcome development. One chunk is a navy-and-white striped rayon blend sweater knit that will become a Harper Cardigan. I think it will look great with jeans and a white T-shirt.

The Spokane Joann stores aren’t much better than ours. Their remnant racks were 75% off and mostly empty. I did pick up two bolts of Pellon Easy Pattern at 50% off. That is what I use for tracing and I am almost out.

Spokane is a sad place these days. The hotel I usually stay at—a major chain—had all sorts of problems. Equipment doesn’t work and it’s obvious they are trying to cut corners to save money. Everything seems to take longer. Simple tasks like filling my car with fuel have become major productions because pumps don’t work, etc.

I left Spokane early Saturday morning and headed to Seattle. I always stop in Moses Lake, which is about halfway, because Moses Lake has a Walmart and a Joann Fabrics. That Joanns is fairly new and still a nice store, although I didn’t buy anything there this time.

I arrived in Seattle mid-afternoon. My first stop was DD#2’s apartment, where I dropped off a bunch of items I had brought for her. She and I went over to check in to my Airbnb.

I hit the lottery with this AirBnb rental. The price was great, but the location was even better. It was a quick ten-minute drive from DD#2’s apartment, easy to get to, with off-street parking. (That’s huge in Seattle.) This Airbnb was one unit in a small apartment building that looked like it had been built in the 1960s or 1970s. In keeping with the style of the building, the unit was decorated in mid-century modern furnishings, some of which were obviously original. Everything was clean and cozy, and the view was spectacular:

The evening view was even lovelier:

We had stellar weather all week. I think it might have drizzled once or twice but that was it.

DD#2 and I headed to the Seattle neighborhood of Ballard for dinner and a stop at a little store called Monster so I could pick up the other four Robert Mahar anatomical embroidery kits. I bought the first one there last year. DD#2 also got an embroidery kit. She’s been doing counted cross-stitch but finds it a bit tedious, so she thought she might try regular embroidery.

I spotted some yarn bombing in Ballard:

I took my little Janome sewing machine with me so I could work on some piecing. This was my sewing area for the week:

We did a Costco run on Sunday and DD#2 made dinner for me at her apartment.

On Monday, I took DD#2’s VW Jetta back to the dealer in Ballard for an oil change and scheduled maintenance. While I was there, I test drove an Atlas. I am still casually looking for a new car and the Atlas was on my list. I liked it very much, although I am struggling with the idea that I will have to give up a car that gets 40 mpg for one that gets 24. (Getting another wagon or SUV is a non-negotiable item on my list of desirables.) I thought we were worried about climate change? You would think I would be able to purchase another diesel vehicle that gets excellent mileage. The fact that I can’t unless I move to Europe makes zero sense to me, like many things these days.

After returning DD#2’s car and retrieving the BMW, I went to the Acura dealer to test drive an MDX. I did not like it as much as the Atlas. I cannot stand the fact that the instrument clusters in these new vehicles are as complicated as the cockpit of a 747. Things are designed badly from a user standpoint and that makes me nuts.

[For the record, the BMW performed flawlessly on this trip, despite the fact that it has 150,000 miles on it and the fact that I drove to Seattle and back with the check engine light illuminated. One of the emission system sensors went bad a few weeks ago. The husband ordered the replacement part and will fix it now that I am back home. He basically has rebuilt that car piece by piece over the past five years. I think I am just going to continue to drive it until I no longer can, because I see no benefit to me in getting another vehicle. All that will get me is an increase in fuel costs and a monthly car payment.]

My private sewing class was on Tuesday morning, so I’ll save that recap for tomorrow’s post.

Franken-Raglan

We needed more chicken feed, so I ran into town yesterday morning. I stopped at the quilt store south of town because it’s near the feed store, and they had just gotten in some QT Fabrics double-brushed poly. This really is the nicest DBP I’ve ever used. It’s not as thick as the DBP that Joanns sells. I bought some of this print:

(What is it with purple all of a sudden?)

This is destined to become Yet Another Laundry Day Tee, hopefully today.

I also stopped at Joanns—don’t ask me why, my car just turns into the parking lot on my way home—and ran into Robin. She had my birthday present in her car so she gave it to me:

It’s a chicken pin cushion! So cute! Pincushions are like seam rippers. One can never have too many of either.

When I got home, I ran up a muslin of my frankenpatterned raglan mashup. I used the turtleneck and upper bodice of the Toaster Sweater married to the tunic bottom of the Nancy Raglan:

The fabric is a chunk of (I think) rayon/poly doubleknit from the Walmart remnant rack in Camden, Tennessee. I wouldn’t call it a ponte, exactly, because it has a very subtle ribbed texture. (Think Eileen Fisher.) It is silky and drapey and was a dream to sew. When I put it on, it settled nicely on my shoulders. It’s the kind of top I can put on and not think about for the rest of the day, and that is the goal for my me-made clothing.

[I have run across quite a few sewists on YouTube who mention that they also buy apparel fabric from Walmart. Are you listening, Joann Fabrics Dollar Store Junk From China?]

I started packing for my trip. It is so gratifying to see how much of what I wear now is clothing I’ve made.

Packing for winter travel is so much more involved than packing for summer travel. I need a bigger suitcase because the clothes are bulkier, and I have to take shoes and boots and rain gear and snow gear because I am never sure what the weather will be like. I’ve got chains and traction pads in the car along with a snow brush and a blanket. I look like I am heading to Siberia.

My Fit for Knits book arrived yesterday and WOW, what a spectacular reference. It’s an inch thick—255 pages—with beautiful, clear illustrations and explanations of every type of garment, sleeve style, neckline, etc and how to alter them to fit. It’s all the more impressive because it is self-published, and you all know how I feel about self-published books. 😉